


i only love it when you touch me, not feel me

by soitgoes



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Car Sex, Dark fic, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, F/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Obsessive Behavior, Pseudo-Incest, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-05
Updated: 2019-06-05
Packaged: 2020-04-08 08:34:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19103524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soitgoes/pseuds/soitgoes
Summary: They have barely spoken more than a few words to one another in years, ever since she convinced him to come back after his outburst in the middle of breakfast. Still, when she calls at two in the morning, sobbing into the phone, he doesn't think twice before going to her.





	i only love it when you touch me, not feel me

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: there is an explicit sex scene in this....so beware if that ain't your thing
> 
> so...........I FUCKING HATE THIS. but at least it made actually finishing my other stuff fun in comparison. 
> 
> It is another "what if Vanya ran after Five and stopped him from going to the future" AU....but gross.
> 
> So sorry about this. I haven't slept in like....over 24 hours but I had to just get this over with and wash my hands of it. Love yall. Pls forgive me.

His phone rings and the shrill, upbeat jingle nearly makes Five jumps out of his skin. Immediately, he whips around to glare at the little device on his desk. It sings out in a series of beats to the tune of Livin’ La Vida Loca. This is no doubt Klaus’ work. He can’t for the life of him think of a time when his brother could have gotten hold of his phone long enough to get past his pass code much less change his ringtone but he is the only one foolhardy enough to mess with Five’s things. Klaus had become a little too cocky for Five’s liking ever since he found out he couldn’t die. After a series of ODs and a few choice gunshots, it had been proven that Klaus, of all the bastards in the world, is invulnerable to death. And it had been a thorn in Five’s side ever since.

The phone continues to ring, it’s little bright lights flashing. Five continues to glare as he walks over to it, leaving the chalk he’s been using to scribble on his blackboard behind. The number is unfamiliar though obviously from somewhere in the city according to the area code. Five checks his watch, it’s 1:33 am. He had been working non-stop for hours on his equations and he probably would have continued to do so for hours more had it not been for the interruption. He waits a few more moments and eventually the sound dies and blessed silence falls again.

Five is just about to go back to the board when the phone starts ringing again. He whirls around, grabs the phone and answers.

“Whoever this is, you better have a damn good reason for calling me at one in the fucking morning.”

He doesn’t even check to see if its the same phone number as before. At this point, Five is so sleep deprived and irritated that he doesn’t care much. The other line is silent for a few moments and he considers just hanging up but then the other person speaks.

“Five?”

Her voice is a little tinny, static it breaking up her words as they come through the phone but he’d know her voice anywhere and in any way it came to him.

“Vanya?” he breathes her name.

“Five, I-I need you.”

“Where are you?”

She could be anywhere. Three years ago, when they all turned fourteen, Reginald decided it was best to send Vanya to some posh private school in Manhattan. It drives a wedge even further between her and the rest of the siblings which is Reginald’s goal no doubt. He wouldn’t even allow her to wear the Academy uniform anymore. Instead it had been replaced by her new school uniform and when she wasn’t wearing her school clothes, Vanya is expected to wear normal clothes, much to Allison’s chagrin.

By fifteen, Vanya is sneaking out almost every night, gallivanting and rioting through the city with those rich kids she goes to school with. He knows a few of the clubs that she and her crowd frequent in the city. But her nightly activities are not limited to the city. Once he had followed her all the way out to White Plains to a house party. He had watched her drink and dance and let any boy brave enough, put their hands on her. The thought of that night turns his stomach.

“I made a big mistake,” she says, Five can tell she is on the verge of tears. “I-I’m messed up and I-I just need you. Please.”

Her voice breaks and she sobs into the phone.

“Vanya,” he says gravely, her sobbing quiets a little at the sound of her name. “Tell me where you are, I’m coming to get you.”

* * *

He didn’t even know she had kept his number. About a year ago, Five had asked Pogo to procure a phone for him on a whim. He thought it might come in handy to have a mobile mode of communication as well as the privacy of a personal line. However, knowing his siblings well enough, Five had given his number to a select few. Vanya had been included in that small group but he had hardly expected her to keep it.

They had grown distant over the years, ever since they were thirteen. Five had been experimenting with tiny time jumps, just a minute or two forward. He believed himself ready to do something bigger and was eager to progress forward. However, when Reginald had denied him and reprimanded him so soundly in front of the others, he had run off fully intending to make the jump anyway. It had been Vanya who stopped him. She had come flying out after him, calling his name and begging him not to leave her. He can still remember her knuckles, turning white with the force of her grip on his sleeve.

The address she gives him is too far away to jump to, someplace up near Yonkers. It would be a thirty minute drive at least but it doesn’t deter Five’s determination in the least. She could be three states over, all the way across the world, if she needed him,  Five would go to her. He owes her that much, estranged or no. Besides, it was his fault that they drifted apart in the first place.

Its just after two in the morning when he rolls into a darkened neighborhood. The road is lit only by the orange glow of street lamps over head and Five has to squint just to see the numbers on each building. However, he doesn’t need to search for long. Just a few minutes after turning into the neighborhood, Five spots a house that sticks out like a sore thumb all alight, music blaring from the open windows. He puts the car in park a few houses away and jumps the rest of the way to the stoop. The door is unlocked and he enters only to be met by a crowd of drunk, sweaty teenagers.

Five doesn’t want to be there. Unlike the crisp autumn air outside, it is muggy in the house and cramped. Somehow the room is too dim and too bright. Only half of the lights in the house are on but there are a number of party lights flashing and blaring all throughout the house in a confusing, nearly distressing display. The intense desire to be anywhere but in that crowd is overwhelming and sudden. His hands close to fists but Five wills himself to stay put. He’s there for a reason. He has to find her.

A few people are chatting in the hallway and approaches them. Five has never enjoyed casual conversation, small talk. He finds the act inane and uncomfortable but he puts on a good face when he interrupts.

“I’m looking for my sister, Vanya Hargreeves?” he says trying to be seems as amiable as he can manage.

The person he asks just stares blankly at him and replies with sour breath, “don’t know him, sorry.”

Five doesn’t bother explaining. His patience drains. The next one simply responds:

“Who?”

With no other choice, Five moves further into the crowd. The music is low and rhythmic but so ear splittingly loud that he can barely hear himself think.The party lights continue to flash, pulse and flicker while the bodies around him sway and chatter about such useless nonsense he begins to feel sick. He pushes through the crowd and spots the sound system, a goliath of a set up, speakers stacked on one another all connected to a large sound board set up on a table. It is pushed up against the wall directly in front of him.

Tired of struggling through the sea of bodies, he jumps to it in a flash of blue. A few people gasp at his sudden disappearance but he doesn’t have time to worry about that. It takes a few moments but he finds the outlet that all the plugs feed into and without a second thought, Five unceremoniously unplugs the whole thing. The music cuts out and for a few blessed moments, it is silent.

"Where is Vanya Hargreeves?" he shouts into the silence but no one seems to care.

Instead, people begin shouting, demanding the music be put back on. One shout becomes two, becomes ten and then more and suddenly the crowd erupts. Five has had it. Without thinking twice he approaches the stack of speakers and presses all his weight into it. Someone shouts as it careens but no one reacts quick enough and it topples over with a loud crash. More people scream, a few cheer, elated by the chaos. Five decides he fucking hates house parties.

Finally with the room’s attention him, Five asks again, “Where the _fuck_ is my sister?”

One brave soul looks at the wreckage then back at Five and says, "Jesus Christ dude."

This isn’t the first time his temper has caused a wreck. His temper is what costs him Vanya back when they were thirteen. After his outburst at breakfast, Reginald, claiming that it is for his own protection, takes all Five’s research on time travel and burns it. Reginald calls Five into his office just so he can watch as years and years of his hard work turns to ash right before his eyes. Five could have murdered someone then. His fury is so overwhelming that he could have strangled the life out of someone but he can’t do that and he can’t retaliate against the true object of his fury so he lashes out at Vanya instead. In his rage-addled mind, he had surmised that because she had stopped him, because she had convinced him to come back, the whole thing had been her fault. They had been so close before then. He wholly believed himself to be her sole confidant. She had told him all her fears, her insecurities and in his rage he had thrown it back in her face. The things he said to her back then, even just thinking of them now makes a chill run down his spine.

"Tell me, where Vanya Hargreeves is. _Now_."

He scans the crowd, a sea of confused and somewhat frightened faces. No one moves and no one says a word until from the back of the room a voice rises up.

"You're looking for Vanya?"

Five sees a hand waving from the back of the room. A red-headed girl dressed all in black is tip-toeing and straining to see above the heads of the crowd. In a flash of blue, he is besides the redhead. When he appears, she lets out a little shriek of surprise and Five rolls his eyes. He doesn’t have time to explain.

“Take me to her,” he says.

The girl pauses, blinks stupidly at him for a few moments. Five can practically hear tiny wheel of her mind squeaking into motion but he has had it.

“I don’t have all night. Do you know where she is or not?” he grumbles.

Red opens her mouth as if she wants to respond but she thinks better of it and motions for him to follow her.

Behind him he hears someone say, “well...what the fuck do we do now?”

He follows the girl further into the house down a long hallway. There are fewer people back here, small groups of people move in and out of rooms, loiter in the hallway. It is darker in the back of the house shielded from the flashing lights in the living room.  She takes him to a room at the end of the hall.

Redhead knocks on the door softly but when no one answers she opens it and says:

"We tried to get her a taxi but she said someone was coming for her.”

The room is fairly large with a queen-sized bed at the center where he finds the sight of his sister draped across the comforter on her side. She’s in a blouse that’s far too thin for the autumn air and skirt that is criminally short. It rides up a little revealing the elastic tops of her stockings, digging into her skin ever so slightly.

“Vanya?”

At the sound of his voice, she animates. Vanya pops up, the sudden motion causes her blouse to shift to the side and fall slightly from her shoulder.

"Five!"

In a second, she’s up from the bed and running to him. Without warning she throws herself into his arms and Five catches her, his body moving though his mind is stunned. It's the closest they've been in years and it hits him all at once. He’s missed her. Even with her in his arms, he misses her.

"You came,” she murmurs into his chest before leaning back to look at him as if she isn’t sure if he's really there. “You came for me.”

He would have probably found the look of utter wonder on her face as she stares up at him endearing if it wasn’t for the shiner forming around her left eye. Her bottom lip is split and there’s a small smudge of blood at the corner of her mouth where she must have wiped at the wound. Five’s blood runs cold. He tips her chin up so that he can get a better look at the damage.

“Who did this?” he says, voice low and his tone grave.

Vanya’s eyes shift away from his gaze.

He turns and snaps at the redhead who brought him there, “who the fuck did this to her?”

Five begins to stalk towards the other girl who cowers back from the door frame into the hallway. Vanya’s hands are quick to grasp at him, little fists tightening around the collar of his jacket.

“Please, Five. Forget it,” she pleads. “Let’s just go”

He lifts his hands fully intending to shake her off but she’s too quick for him. Vanya lets go of his jacket and wraps her arms around his middle. Her legs give out and he has to turn away from the girl in the hallway to keep Vanya from falling to the floor.

“The guy’s already gone,” the girl whispers behind him, her voice shaking with fear.

“I just wanna go,” Vanya mumbles, her cheek pressed into his chest. “Please, Five. I just wanna go. I just wanna go.”

Vanya is on the verge of tears and clearly drunk, if not on something stronger than alcohol. The girl in the hallway looks like she’s about to burst into tears as well. With no other choice, Five sighs and though it does nothing to quell his rage, he wraps his arms around his sister and pulls her closer. After a few moments, he feels her grip around his middle loosen. He slips his hands under them and lifts her to her feet. She sways but before she can fall again, Five slips one arm under her knees and the other across her back and swings her up. In cradled in his arms, Vanya turns her face into his chest and closes her eyes. One small hands reaches up and grips the collar of his jacket.

He turns towards the exit to find the other girl still waiting, besides her is something guy in a polo shirt and khakis.

“Hey man, you gotta pay for the damage you caused to my sound system,” he says, indignant at first but half way through he wilts under Five’s glare.

“Just forget it, James,” the other girl says, the fear is clear is her eyes.

“Yeah, _James_ ,” Five sneers. “Forget it.”

He pushes past both of them and storms down the hall. Up ahead, Five sees that the crowd has thinned considerably. There is barely even a third of the amount of bodies meandering around the silent house. He rushes past them, knowing that they stare but not really giving a damn. He kicks open the door and walks out into the street, making quick work of the distance to the car.

This isn’t the first time he’s had to grab her from one of these things. As he struggles with the door handle, Five thinks back to the place in White Plains. She had been a wreck that night and far less appreciative of his presence. Somehow, he manages to get the door to the backseat open and gently deposit what he thinks is a sleeping Vanya inside. However, as soon as he tries to slip her out of his grasp her eyes snap open and she’s scrambling to keep hold of him.

“No,” she says. “No, don’t leave.”

She’s still half in his arms, arms and hands grabbing at any part of him they can reach.

“I can’t, Vanya. I have to drive,” he replies as he tries to thwart her attempts to pull him into the back.  

“No, no. Stay with me,” her voice is shaking, her arms are around him, fingers digging into the nape of his neck. “I don’t wanna go back to the house.”

Five sighs. He knows that she’s drunk and that her request is less than logical. If not the Academy, then where else would they go? But still, as he looks down at her, so pathetic, needy, for him, he realizes that he is in no rush to return to the house. Somehow he knows that as soon as they go back to the Academy, this spell will end and their armistice will resume. He is frozen with indecision and Vanya takes the opportunity to reposition herself. She kneels on the seat and pulls him in closer until she can rest her chin on his shoulder.

“Stay with me,” she begs.

How can he deny her?

With gentle, but stern fingers, Five disentangles himself from her arms. Vanya begins to whine, arms reaching out for him again but she quiets as he scoots in besides her. As he closes the door, Five hugs the side and makes sure to keep his distance. Already his pulse has picked up, the blood pounding in his ears and embarrassingly his pants tightens. Vanya has other plans. As soon as the door closes, she finds his body with her own, pressing into his arm, gripping his wrist.

“What now?” his whispers.

He doesn’t trust his voice enough to speak at full volume. His throat is tight and his head is spinning but there is a strange calm that falls over him that comes simply from being near to her. He hasn't felt it in years.

“I don’t know,” she whispers. “I just want to stay here, with you.”

The way she says the last part makes his ears burn. Just then, the car light goes out and they are plunged into semi-darkness. The streetlamp a little ways up offers just the faintest glow.

Vanya’s eyes are down cast and he is suddenly very worried about her eyes straying to his lap. The sensation of her fingers caressing the inside of his wrist sends a thrill through him. Goosebumps rising along with his pulse brings to mind a memory from years ago.

_She's standing in her room, still damp from a shower, clad only in her underwear. She's left the door ajar._

He feels unbearably hot all of a sudden despite the autumn chill and the tightening in his pants only worsens.Vanya doesn't seem to notice. Her attention is solely on the tattoo on his wrist. She traces the circle and then the shape of the open umbrella. He can feel his heart beat in his chest, like a drum, like a drum. Vanya must feel it too, her finger tips lingering over his pulse.

She’s so close, _too_ close. He feels like maybe he's little drunk too, drunk on her.

"Vanya I-" his voice cracks.

"I don't wanna talk about it."

What “it” she’s referring to he doesn’t know. Five isn’t even completely sure what he was going to say before she stops him. He feels her fingers curl into his wrist, her nails digging into the skin painfully and he looks up to find her eyes on him already. At first she seems scared, wild even as though whatever she had endured at the party before he got there is suddenly crashing down on her and he wants to help her, wants to wash it all away but then there’s a change. A sudden shift in her expression. No more wilting damsel, her eyes sharpen like that of a predator sensing the movement of prey. His breath catches.

Vanya moves quickly and with more deftness than he would have expected. She had seemed pretty smashed earlier but she easily maneuvers herself onto his lap and doesn’t even hit her head on the ceiling of the cabin. Her thighs are on either side of his waist, gripping him lightly. Her hands are clasped on his shoulders. The sudden movement and change in position causes her skirt to ride up and he notices that she isn’t wearing any panties. He can feel the subtle heat of her through his pants and it leaves him throbbing.

Before he can ask what she’s doing, Vanya leans in and presses her lips to his. She licks at the line of his mouth, asking for entry and he complies eagerly. Her mouth tastes slightly of alcohol and a little metallic from the blood from her split lip but beneath that he tastes something else. He tastes _her._  After a few seconds of blissful assault on his mouth, Vanya leans back to stare at him with dark eyes. He can hear nothing but their breathing, heavy and matched. In the dark of the car, he can just make out her face and he wonders if she can see him too.

Vanya moves in to press another kiss to his mouth, this one is far more conservative, just the pressing of lips against lips. She trails kisses along his cheek. Her hands release his shoulder and she leans into him, arms sliding back past his ears, looping around his head. Five can feel the press of her cheek on the right side of his head. The hot air of her breath brushes the top of ear sending a shiver down his spine directly to his groin. Somehow, he gets even harder.

“Please, Five,” she whispers in his ear. “I need you.”

It isn’t that he hasn’t ever considered her in this way. Five isn’t stupid. He knows that they aren’t _real_ siblings. All the Hargreeves children had figured that out pretty quickly, not least of which Allison and Luther. Those two had been smitten since as far back as anyone can remember.  Admittedly, he takes a little longer to realize that his feelings towards his sister are less than familial.

That same memory from before comes hurtling back at him. Her damp skin, freckled and pink, fills his head. About a year after his outburst, when they are fourteen, he catches sight of her in her room. Her door is ajar. It must have been a mistake, a thoughtless mistake that had left her so vulnerable. He is just passing, slowly, glancing at her door hoping to catch a glimpse of her. After he blew up at her, blaming her for the loss of all his research, Vanya refuses to even look at him. Even after nearly a whole year, she holds her silence and though he had been loathe to admit it he misses her.

When he sees the door ajar, he had crept over to it. He knew it was wrong, invasive and creepy but he just wants a look. If cannot be near her, cannot be close to her any longer, he would like to at least be able to see her. Vanya must have just showered. Her hair had been wet, skin still rosy from the hot water. She stands in her little room, the smallest in the whole house save for the closets and cupboards.

Five knew back then what he knows now, he shouldn’t have looked. As soon as he had seen her wet hair, her pink skin, he should have turned and walked away but he didn’t. He stays and watches, mesmerized by the motion of her bending over to slip into her cotton panties and bra. He can still remember the curve of her cunt beneath the loose cotton, the subtle dip at the center. That night, he thinks about her in bed. He imagines her standing in his room, skin still damp, in nothing but cotton underwear. His hand his down his pants, stroking, stroking until he comes in his hand. He’s spent more nights that he’d like to admit and is probably healthy, thinking about that moment. But for all his thoughts and fantasies he had never thought that they’d ever come true.

“I need you, I need you,” she murmurs over and over.

The sound of her voice draws him back to the present. Neither of them are fourteen anymore and she isn't wearing any underwear, cotton or otherwise but there is a strange symmetry to all this. His memory and fantasies aligning now with must certainly be reality. Vanya's small, shaking voice is hot in the shell of his and he believes her, _wants_ to believe her.

They stay like that for a little while, tangled up in one another and Five takes the opportunity to breaths her in. Just to be close again feels like a dream. Years, _years_ she had kept herself from him and he had let her. Five had been willing to give her the space she needed to get over what happened between them. The distance had ached like a wound but now, with her in his arms, he feels as though the wound has closed. He takes another deep breath of her. The smell of perfume mixes with the salty scent of her sweat. The perfume is nice. Dark, warm, and sweet but Five buries his face into the crook of her neck trying to get beyond that artificial smell. He likes the musky smell of her sweat drenched skin better. Five would have been happy to die there, drunk on the feel and smell of her. But Vanya isn’t satisfied. Her right arm trails down his chest, lower and lower until reaches the button of his pants. She lingers there for a second as if she isn’t sure.

Their eyes meet and after a beat, he understands. She’s asking for permission. She doesn’t need to ask twice. He quickly undoes the button and unzips his pants. She’s already wet, he can feel the heat of it above his lap, feels himself twitch. Her fingers are warm and soft as she reaches past the elastic band of his briefs and takes his cock in her hand, she strokes him once before slipping his cock free of his underwear.

Panic suddenly rises in his chest. It’s as if he's only just fully understood, this is his sister. This is Vanya. He’d been there when her first baby tooth fell out and held her as she cried because she thought it meant she could only eat oatmeal for the rest of her life. He’d been there for her first haircut, had laughed at her blunt, crooked bangs. This is Vanya. Vanya’s hand on his cock, Vanya’s wet, warm cunt above his lap, and her lips and teeth at his ear, nibbling. He thinks that he should push her off, tell her to stop because as much as he has been fantasizing about this very thing for years, this is absolutely insane. Five, of course, does neither of these things. Instead, he digs his fingers deeper into the soft flesh of her hips as she lowers herself onto him.

“Fuck,” is all he can hiss at the feel of her around.

She goes so slow at first, inch by inch. Five has his eyes glued to her face. He’s absolutely fixated on reading every little movement, every micro-expression. Her mouth drops open, lips unfurling like a flower blooming. She is so warm, so warm that he thinks he might melt.

Vanya sets the pace, steady, rhythmic. Her skirt is bunched up around her waist revealing the elastic tops of her stockings. Five wants to run his hands up them and so he hesitantly releases one hand’s grip on her hip and places at her knee. Vanya sighs at his touch but she doesn’t stop her measured undulation. He skates his open palm up the soft, sheer fabric and stop where the elastic ends. There is a slight indentation where the fabric digs into her flesh. He fingers the boundaries between her bare skin and her stockings and she smiles.

“Here,” she murmurs, taking hold of his hand.

She pulls it up under the bunched fabric of her skirt, places it on her belly. Five marvels at how soft and warm she feels but that isn’t where she wants him. Vanya takes his thumb between her fingers. Slowly, she leads him down, lower until he feels her clit beneath the pad of his thumb. She places her own thumb over his, pressing lightly and guiding him to move in a small, tight circular motion over the little nub.

“Just like that,” she breaths, her chest heaving as he continues the motion and pace she’s set. “Just like that.”

He feels her clit twitching beneath his thumb. Her whole body reacting in tandem with each little jolt that he elicits from her. It is spellbinding. He’s never seen anything like it. The way she moves like some serpentine creature, languid and lavish. Five tries to find her eyes in the dark, has the sudden need to see her as she breaks beneath this pleasure but he can’t find them. Her eyes are closed and she’s mumbling nonsense, urgently, but he can find no meaning in it. Her movements become more erratic. Gone is the slow, measured wave of her body over him.

“Press harder,” she mumbles and it takes him a moment to realize what she means. “Harder!”

At her second insistence, he is quick to comply. He presses hard on her clit and she lets loose a cry, guttural, animalistic. He feels her cunt tighten suddenly around his cock and he gasps and cries out too. The sensation is unlike anything he’s ever felt. This is nothing like those nights spent alone in his room thinking about her with his hand around his cock, pulling for all he's worth. No fantasy or waking dream in the dark could compare to this. White spots fill his vision, his eyes squeeze shut as his orgasm rushes over him. His hips buck up to meet her and the hand not on her cunt grips her hip and pushes her down, needing to be deeper within her.

It could have been a few seconds or an eternity that he spends in that aching, burning pleasure. But however long he's  there, it isn’t long enough. Five comes back to himself in pieces. First is his hand on her hip, he feels her hand over his. She is peeling it off and reaching for the other one still attached to her clit. Next, he can see again. In the dim light, her pretty, heart-shaped face is flushed and her hair sticks to her face with sweat, perfection. Vanya lifts his arms and wraps them around her and then collapses into him.

“Just hold me, just hold me,” she mumbles into his ear.

Five complies and holds her tightly against him. Their chests rise and fall in tandem and he feels wholly complete for the first time in four years. After a few minutes he feels her breathing slow and even out. When he’s certain that she’s asleep, he gently removes her from his lap. She’s so tiny that it barely takes any effort at all but he grimaces, loathe to part with the sweet weight of her against him. Five lays her out on the backseat of the car, straightens out her skirt. She curls into herself, turns to face the back of the car. For a while, he just watches her and wrestles with the realization that he’s just fucked his sister. He just fucked Vanya in the back seat of their father’s car. It feels almost too good to be true.

Five drives them back to the Academy. She doesn’t even wake when he pulls her from the backseat. The house is silent. Pogo is long asleep, Luther and Ben are off on some kind of mission that Five had refused to participate in. Reginald had seemed more than displeased at his refusal but Five is so glad that he had. He carries her through the dark house, up the stairs to their rooms.

He sees her open door as they are coming up the stairs. Five pauses and considers putting her to bed there but thinks better of it. Instead, he carries her up to his room and sets her on his bed. Suddenly feeling the heaviness of exhaustion, he eagerly climbs in besides her boxing her in between him and the wall. He curls his body around hers, drapes an arm across her middle and pulls her in closer. Five presses his nose into the nape of her neck, breathes in once and then submits himself to oblivion.

* * *

When Five wakes, he’s alone. There is a second of utter panic where he thinks that the whole thing may have been nothing more than a dream. The notion leaves him so utterly hollow that he is winded by it. The smell of her sweat, the feel of her cunt as she tightened around him, he can still remember it so clearly. Agony cuts through him as he considers the possibility that after all that, dream or no, things will return to the way they were before. He thinks of the aching chasm that had been between them now for four years and it burns.

But then, something tickles the skin of his arm, a single strand of long brown hair stands out against the white of sheets. It’s evidence enough for him. He pulls on a pair of paints and a t-shirt and rushes out of his room. He checks her room quickly but finding it empty continues to  rush down the stairs. She could be anywhere. The house alone takes up a whole block but if she left the house then she could be just about anywhere. But as if drawn on a string, he goes to the kitchen and there she is. She’s seated at the table with her back is to him, her long hair is loose and damp. He steps into the room, her name already half formed on his lips but he’s stopped by the sound of Grace calling out to him.

“Five! You’re awake,” Grace says and he sees her tense up at the mention of his name but she doesn’t turn around. “Come and sit. I’ll make you some eggs.”

His eyes still trained on her, he replies, “it’s fine. I’m not hungry.”

Grace smiles mindlessly at him but after a couple beats, she nods and continues whatever menial task she had set about for herself. Vanya remains silent. She pushes her eggs around on her plate and doesn’t make a move, doesn’t say a word.

“Vanya,” he says, she turns her head to the side ever so slightly. “Can I talk to you?”

With a heavy sigh, she stands. She keeps her head down, avoids his probing eyes.

“Thank you for breakfast, mom,” she murmurs and Grace responds with some generic maternal phrase about the importance of the first meal.

Vanya brushes past him into the hall and leans back against the wall. Still refusing to look at him, her silence makes him nervous.

“Why didn’t you wake me up?” he asks, stepping towards her.

She flinches back and crosses her arms over her chest.

“Why didn’t you put me in my room?” she volleys back. “I was freaked out. I didn’t even know where I was this morning.”

Vanya still won’t look at him and he feels suddenly like he’s going to be sick.

“You-you know what my room looks like, Vanya. What are you talking about?”

Her bottom lip curls inward and she catches between her teeth. A nervous tick that she’s had since they were kids, she flinches no doubt from the wound near the left side of her mouth. The shiner around her left eye is fully formed now. The deep purple is stark against her pale skin. He reaches out, brushes a lock of hair from her face so that he can get a better look. At his touch, her eyes snap up, in her eyes is both outrage and something else, hurt. She smacks his hand away.

“I don’t know what you think happened last night, Five but...it doesn’t change anything between us.”

He feels as though she’s slapped him in the face.

“We - Vanya, we had _sex_.”

Vanya groans and brings her hands up the cover her face. He is scared she might be crying behind her hands but after a few seconds, she wipes her hand slowly down her face. Her eyes are dry, her expression exasperated, annoyed but catching sight of his expression she softens.

“Look, I’m sorry,” she says but stops to sigh once more and bite her lip before continuing. “I needed someone. I was really...I was messed up last night and I really really needed someone to bring me back down and you were there for me. And I’m really grateful for that, but I just needed you _then_. But it’s now and I don’t need you anymore. It’s never going to happen again. Get it?”

Vanya stares up at him expectantly. This is the most they have spoken in four years. He must look devastated because she uncrosses her arms and reaches up to rest a small hand upon his shoulder.

“I’m sorry. Thank you for...being a good brother.”

He almost laughs in her face when she says that but he gets it. Without much more to say to him, Vanya turns from him and walks off in the direction of their rooms. Five _does_ get it but she doesn’t but that’s okay. She thinks that calling him brother puts any distance between them. She’s wrong. It’s just a word, just wind as far as he’s concerned. She says she needed him last night and that she needs him no longer. Back when they were kids, Vanya thought she need him then too. It was his mistake to hurt her so badly that she thought that she didn’t need him anymore. That was his bad but it’s in the past now because she's wrong. She’s always needed him and he needs her. Five gave her space so it is understandable that she forgot. But she understood last night. She got it right last night which means she can be right again. Five gets it and she will too. All he needs to do is help her.

 


End file.
